Written by long-term Taki
Rua collaborator Chris Molloy with well-known actor Te Kohe
Tuhaka in the director’s chair, Putorino
Hill will take audiences on a unique theatrical
experience into a magical and sometimes nightmare
world.

Putorino Hill has its New Zealand
premiere season at BATS Theatre in Wellington from 1-5 July,
followed by a season at Q Theatre in Auckland from15-19
July.

Commissioned by Taki Rua, Putorino
Hill is the result of the 2013 Taki Rua and Court
Theatre Māori Writer’s Residency. Writer Chris Molloy has
previously written for Taki Rua’s Te Reo Māori
season.

“Essentially Putorino Hill is about healing and
what one person needs to do to achieve healing. I was
inspired by philosophies from my Christian upbringing and
Māori spirituality, but at the heart of it is an old man
finally being able to to tell his story.”

Part
fairy-tale and part rural legend, Putorino
Hill follows one man’s journey into the
complexities of manhood, love and his battle to hold onto
the ones he’s lost.

First meeting Whiti as an old man,
audiences are taken on a journey into his past and the
everyday and supernatural events that have marked Whiti’s
path through life.

Set against a backdrop of the rural and
almost deserted Reinga township, audiences will enter
Whiti’s magical and sometimes nightmarish world – a
world of taonga pūoro, ancient battles, of patupaiarehe
(fairies), prophetic visions and miracle
healings.

Sometimes dreamlike and sometimes painfully
real, this is the story of a man on a quest for redemption
– for himself, his koro and his sleepy hometown,
Reinga.

The cast for Putorino Hill will
be confirmed in April. Putorino Hill is the
first play in Taki Rua’s 2014 season of theatre which will
include two more new works; the Te Reo Māori season work
Ngunguru I te Ao I te Po will be performed in marae and
schools throughout the country, while Vanilla Miraka,
written and performed by Hayley Sproull, will have its first
season in Wellington in October.

Putorino
Hill is at BATS Theatre in Wellington from 1-5 July
and at Q Theatre in Auckland from 15-19 July. For more
information visit www.takirua.co.nz________________________________________ENDSInterviews
with Chris Molloy and Te Kohe Tuhaka are available now. Cast
will be confirmed by mid-April. Production images will be
available in June. For more information and to arrange high
resolution images and interviews, please contact:Sally
Woodfield | SWPR | 021 868 020 | sally@swpr.co.nz

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